Each week CAA News summarizes eight articles, published around the web, that CAA members may find interesting and useful in their professional and creative lives.

Conference Strategies for the Shy and Introverted

A comment on Twitter made me realize how many strategies I’ve developed over the past few years to deal with being shy and introverted in a conference environment. Caveats that these are a work in progress, they function best at small to midsized conferences, and I don’t always practice what I preach. (Read more from Jessica Otis.)

11 Studio Hacks That Will Save You Money in Art School

Back to school season means spending all that money you earned at your summer job on art supplies. In this helpful guide, we’ll share some money-saving studio hacks that will get you through the school year without maxing out your credit card. And only one tip involves Dumpster diving! (Read more from Artspace Magazine.)

Why Shamanic Practices Are Making a Comeback in Contemporary Art

“Everyone always talks about how, in times of crisis, people start looking for God,” says Jeremy Shaw. “And I think that’s very synonymous with what’s happening now.” Since his days at art school, Shaw has been exploring the human pursuit of transcendental experience by way of altered states of consciousness. (Read more from Artsy.)

White Supremacists Are Waging a War against Public Space

The Charlottesville attack threatens public space, an amenity that is both scarce and necessary for democracy. The idea of the public square is under attack. And the extremist alt-right is waging a campaign to shut down the public square, using both violence and intimidation, especially under open-carry laws. (Read more from City Lab.)

Now Is the Time to Think about Accessibility

As a new semester approaches, the academic’s to-do list can fill up fast. That course planning you’ve been putting off now seems urgent. Your chair wants a copy of your syllabi by the end of the week. And there’s still the matter of those writing deadlines. I’m here to add one more item to your list. Now is the time—not later—to think about accessibility in your classroom. (Read more from Vitae.)

Sociology Panel Seeks Changes for Adjuncts

The American Sociological Association’s Task Force on Contingent Faculty released its interim report ahead of the association’s annual meeting this week. The report includes an overview of the existing literature on non-tenure-track faculty members and recommends various policy changes. (Read more from Inside Higher Ed.)

The Highest Form of Flattery

Why risk being classified as a mere imitator? In a new book entitled, with quiet provocation, Modern Painters, Old Masters: The Art of Imitation from the Pre-Raphaelites to the First World War, Elizabeth Prettejohn sets out to answer this question, even as she argues for a more expansive understanding of what counts as “modern art.” (Read more from the New York Review of Books.)

The 10 Best Artworks by Raphael, Seraphic Genius of the Renaissance—Ranked

To celebrate the artist’s enduring legacy, we surveyed ten of Raphael’s most popular paintings—determined by their presence on Google Images, the number of reproductions created, and our own aesthetic enthusiasms—and ranked them from one to ten, in order of their degree of accomplishment. (Read more from Artnet News.)

Each week CAA News summarizes eight articles, published around the web, that CAA members may find interesting and useful in their professional and creative lives.

Professors as Targets of Internet Outrage

Many professors who have expressed their views about race and politics this year have found themselves targets of both the left and right. Nothing is too abstrusely academic, it seems, to seed an attack campaign fueled by websites that surveil social media to find gotcha-worthy gems. (Read more from the New York Times.)

Demands to Cancel Dana Schutz’s ICA Exhibit Don’t Help the Cause for Social Justice

A small group of Boston activists demand as much in their passionate opposition to the current Dana Schutz exhibition at ICA Boston. Should an artist be blacklisted and blocked from showing their work at museums around the nation because one of their recent paintings tackled the painful topic of the history of racial violence? (Read more from the National Coalition against Censorship.)

Upstart Co-Lab Wants Businesses to Hire More Artists

We’re used to the common narrative of the artist as someone so inspired that they simply can’t stomach a drab office job, preferring to ditch the cubicle for the white cube. And yet research has found that employers almost universally report creativity is of increasing importance in the “traditional” workplace. (Read more from Artsy.)

The Letters of Picasso’s Dealer and a Century’s Worth of Impressionist Archives Are Going Online

Art historians and dealers researching works of art will soon have a new trove of materials to work with, courtesy of the Wildenstein Plattner Institute. A century’s worth of documentation—stock books from galleries, artists’ correspondence, annotated sale catalogues—will be digitized to develop online catalogues raisonnés for Manet, Morisot, Monet, and more. (Read more from Artnet News.)

The Multifarious Book

A few years ago the director of a university press told me that her goal was “to save the monograph.” “Which one?” I responded. It was an impolitic remark, but it helped to make the point that books perform all kinds of tasks, and when we say we want to “save” the book, it is reasonable to ask if some of those tasks could usefully be performed in better, faster, and cheaper ways. (Read more from the Scholarly Kitchen.)

Cindy Sherman Takes Selfies (as Only She Could) on Instagram

For the most part artists use Instagram like the rest of us: as a document of everyday fascinations, a bit scrubbed up for public consumption. But Cindy Sherman—who knows more than most about the deceptions of selfies—has quietly been exploring Instagram’s potential for something more than self-promotion. (Read more from the New York Times.)

On Thursday evening, at the end of the first day of the Seattle Art Fair, I went on a witch hunt. Ten women wearing black hooded cloaks were wandering the aisles. Amid booths housing galleries from around the world, the dark figures walked, carrying battle axes, reading poetry, playing music, and taking pictures on their phones. (Read more from the Observer.)

Philippe de Montebello on How the Metropolitan Museum Can Reclaim Its Glory

Philippe de Montebello is an institution in his own right—as venerable and encyclopedic as would befit the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which he led for three decades. Recently, ArtnetNews’s editor-in-chief sat down with de Montebello to discuss the changes and opportunities at the Met, and his new role in the gallery world. (Read more from Artnet News.)

Each week CAA News summarizes eight articles, published around the web, that CAA members may find interesting and useful in their professional and creative lives.

How Do Artists Get Gallery Representation?

While it’s possible to go it alone, it’s hard to understate the importance of a supportive, dedicated gallery to your career. The right gallerist doubles as a sounding board while you develop your work, a public platform for your practice, and a source of income. (Read more from Artsy.)

Seven Residencies That Can Help Emerging Artists

For young artists fresh from art school or an MFA program, studio space may be prohibitively expensive, and leaving the nurturing bubble of school is daunting. Residencies can fill that gap—if these up-and-coming artists know which ones to apply for. (Read more from Artnet News.)

The Distracted Classroom: Transparency, Autonomy, and Pedagogy

If we want to make a dent in the problem of digital distractions in class, we must begin by clarifying the policies we have created and the reasons behind them. Those reasons might look different from teacher to teacher. (Read more from the Chronicle of Higher Education.)

Another Year on the Academic Job Market

Perhaps the summer months can provide you some time for concentrated focus on your next—and hopefully last—round on the market. Here is one person’s perspective on what you might do between now and the next academic hiring season. (Read more from Inside Higher Ed.)

Your Syllabus Doesn’t Have to Look Like a Contract

Zac Wendler was tired of the same routine at the beginning of every semester. He would hand out his syllabus—five or so pages of text—and students would glance at it and wait for him to walk them through it. Then for the rest of the semester, they would ask him questions that could be easily answered if they had read the syllabus. (Read more from Vitae.)

Protesters Call on ICA Boston to Cancel Dana Schutz Show

An exhibition of Dana Schutz’s recent work opened at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, and it won’t be without controversy. Protestors released an open letter expressing their disappointment that the museum is honoring an artist they believe should instead be held accountable for her portrait of Emmett Till, Open Casket. (Read more from Hyperallergic.)

Why We Shouldn’t Punish Small Museums for Deaccessioning

AAM and AAMD contend that their member institutions should only deaccession artworks in their holdings for the express purpose of either acquiring new works or, in the AAM’s case, caring for existing works. It’s an ideologically pure, dependably crowd-pleasing position to take. (Read more from Artnet News.)

Look Up, See a Masterpiece

You’re strolling around an art museum, and one painting catches your eye. Intrigued and mesmerized, you think to yourself, “Now that’s a masterpiece!” Many intangibles go into that judgment, but new research suggests it is partially inspired by one easily measured variable: the painting’s placement on the wall. (Read more from Pacific Standard.)

Each week CAA News summarizes eight articles, published around the web, that CAA members may find interesting and useful in their professional and creative lives.

On Graduate Education: Is it Worth it?

If you are reading this, you are likely a graduate student in the field wondering whether to stay. How will I pass my qualifying exams? Do I really have to take German? How do I find a topic for my seminar paper? Will I ever get a talk accepted to CAA? (Read more from Rutgers Art Review.)

Defining Warm and Cool Colors: It’s All Relative

The concept of warm and cool colors has been written about for hundreds of years. Most theories start with the classic six-point color wheel: three primary colors and three secondary colors. (Read more from Just Paint.)

First-Ever New York City Cultural Plan Calls for Funding Institutions in Underserved Communities

New York City spends more on arts and culture than any other city in the US—and more than any single state. The budget of the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs exceeds that of the NEA and NEH. Until now, City Hall has never embarked on a comprehensive review of where all that money goes and what it does. (Read more from ARTnews.)

Kenny Schachter on Learning to Love the LA Art Scene

Los Angeles is a weird place. Angelenos, I observed, have a messianic otherness about them, self-consciously calling attention to themselves and their city in the third person. There’s a refrain heard over and over again: This is so LA. (Read more from Artnet News.)

Tensions in the Art Classroom

A well-known in the art world as a professor specializing in comics and outsider art has resigned from his position at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago amid tensions among the institution, his students, and himself. The resignation is one more example of the ongoing debate between academic freedom and issues stemming from teaching controversial or offensive subject matter. (Read more from Inside Higher Ed.)

If There’s an Organized Outrage Machine, We Need an Organized Response

Anticipating the possibility of an internet mob harassing a professor because of something he or she said can seem a bit like prepping for a lightning bolt. Yes, people get struck by lightning, but it feels like a freak occurrence. It’s easily avoided, some might say, by not flying a kite in a thunderstorm. (Read more from the Chronicle of Higher Education.)

Stop Telling Students Free Speech Is Traumatizing Them

One idea that pops up during the endless national conversation about college campuses, free speech, and political correctness is the notion that certain forms of speech do such psychological harm to students that administrators have an obligation to eradicate them—or, failing that, that students have an obligation to step in and do so themselves. (Read more from New York.)

Mattress Protest and Its Aftermath

A case of alleged rape at Columbia first yielded much sympathy for the accuser and her unusual protest, but ends with the university apologizing to the accused. The case has had a lasting impact on the discussion of sexual assault on campus. (Read more from Inside Higher Ed.)

Each week CAA News summarizes eight articles, published around the web, that CAA members may find interesting and useful in their professional and creative lives.

Summer Art Pilgrimages

Artists and curators—including Doug Aitken, Taner Ceylan, Tacita Dean, Flavin Judd, and Lisa Yuskavage—tell us about the journeys they have embarked on, or hope to make, to see something special. (Read more from the Art Newspaper.)

How Dutch Art School Students Survived Their Thesis Shows

Students from the Gerrit Rietveld Academy, a renowned Dutch visual arts and design college based in Amsterdam, have just turned in their graduation work and their thesis shows, so we thought it was the perfect opportunity to look back at the tricks, tips, and clever ways they were able to circumvent the strict regime of their school. (Read more from Creators.)

On Carl Andre, Ana Mendieta, and the Cult of the Male Genius

After a five-year worldwide tour, the sculptor Carl Andre’s major retrospective has reached its final stop at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. MOCA has appeared to make minor fanfare on its behalf. There has been little to no advertising of the show. The opening wasn’t well attended. (Read more from the Los Angeles Review of Books.)

Medievalists Try to Diversify the Field

The room for the 9:00 AM keynote lecture, “The Mediterranean Other and the Other Mediterranean: Perspective of Alterity in the Middle Ages,” at the annual International Medieval Congress wasn’t crowded. Most attendees—more than 2,400 of them, from fifty-six countries—were still arriving or recovering from jet lag. When the introductions began, one person noticed that all of the speakers discussing “otherness” were white, European men. (Read more from the Chronicle of Higher Education.)

Brad Troemel Accuses Fashion Designer of Ripping Off His Art

A few looks from the Vika Gazinskaya Spring 2018 ready-to-wear collection appear to take direct inspiration from the work of Brad Troemel—without permission, acknowledgement, or arrangement. Through a few posts on Instagram, Troemel alleges that the dresses directly lift designs and imagery from paintings he showed in New York last November. (Read more from ARTnews.)

Why NCAC Objects to “Restore Campus Free Speech” Bills

NCAC recently sent a letter to North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper urging him to veto a bill dubbed as a measure to “restore” and “preserve” free speech on state college campuses. But why would an organization devoted to free expression object to an effort to safeguard free speech at universities? (Read more from the National Coalition against Censorship.)

Why Collaborative Curating Makes Sense for a Divided Political Era

In the wake of election of Donald Trump, artists and curators have been wrestling with the idea of how to respond creatively, through their practice, to the current charged political climate. Such is the challenge that curators Amanda Hunt and Eric Crosby have explicitly given themselves with their exhibition 20/20, opening at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh. (Read more from Artnet News.)

Advancing Participation in the Survey

Without some demonstration of career utility, courses like art history serve as just another core requirement to be endured, rather than valued. While challenging, this situation also presents art historians with the opportunity to present the history of art as something relevant, practical, and helpful to otherwise disinterested students. (Read more from Art History Teaching Resources.)

Each week CAA News summarizes eight articles, published around the web, that CAA members may find interesting and useful in their professional and creative lives.

Lessons from the Scaffold Controversy: “Museums Are Inherently Colonial Institutions”

It’s been just over a month since Minneapolis was hit with the Scaffold controversy. We asked several American curators to consider the controversy’s lessons for the larger museum world. Their responses set a new tone for how cultural institutions can work with local indigenous communities. (Read more from the Minneapolis Star Tribune.)

Falling in Love with a Felix Gonzalez-Torres Go-Go Dancer

It was the squeaking of the shoes that caught my attention. I knew exactly what was going on, and that the pale blue platform which I had seen empty a minute earlier was now occupied. I quietly rushed through the gallery to the small room where I saw him. Upon walking in, I froze and stared. (Read more from Hyperallergic.)

Thomas Campbell on Why He Stepped Down from the Met

I’ve moved the museum forward in many respects. We’ve modernized and come into the twenty-first century. We have an extraordinarily strong program. We’ve grown our audience by 40 percent. We’ve digitized. And we’ve done a lot of planning for the future. (Read more from the Art Newspaper.)

Most of a Mexican Museum Collection Fails Authentication

Almost all artifacts described as the oldest in the permanent collection of the Mexican Museum are either forgeries or cannot be authenticated to display in a national museum. That’s the finding of a report commissioned by the museum board and submitted in late June by Eduardo Pérez de Heredia Puente, an associate of the National Institute of Anthropology and History in Mexico City. (Read more from the San Francisco Gate.)

The Women Who Built the New York Art World

Over the course of ten years, between 1929 and 1939, four of New York City’s most iconic museums emerged: the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney, the Frick Collection, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. These institutions are now world famous. But their founders—predominantly women—are relatively unknown. (Read more from Artsy.)

How to Chair a University Department and Not Be Terrible at It

This summer, I am completing a five-year stint as chair of my department. I know a lot more about chairing than I did when I took on the position, so I thought this might be a good time to share some lessons for those now taking on similar positions in their institutions or considering doing so in the future. (Read more from Pacific Standard.)

The Rise of the Thought Leader

The rich have empowered a new kind of thinker—the “thought leader”—at the expense of the much-fretted-over “public intellectual.” Whereas public intellectuals like Noam Chomsky or Martha Nussbaum are skeptical and analytical, thought leaders like Thomas Friedman and Sheryl Sandberg “develop their own singular lens to explain the world, and then proselytize that worldview to anyone within earshot.” (Read more from the New Republic.)

How to Build Your Own Career Fair

Career fairs pose special challenges for doctoral students and postdocs. Some people I advise describe feeling discouraged that the organizations they encounter at local career fairs are misaligned with their specific career interests. One reason is that the diversity of PhD programs in many institutions makes it impractical to bring together employers who appeal to a large portion of attendees. (Read more from Inside Higher Ed.)

Each week CAA News summarizes eight articles, published around the web, that CAA members may find interesting and useful in their professional and creative lives.

Do Free Speech and Inclusivity Clash?

Greg Lukianoff has spent much of his career making life miserable for college and university lawyers. So some members of the National Association of College and University Attorneys might have been surprised to hear the head of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education suggest that students—not campus officials—are increasingly the people he worries most about in campus free speech debates. (Read more from Inside Higher Ed.)

Decoding the Trump Regime

Political art, however well intentioned, isn’t going to stop Congress and the President from swapping billions in Medicaid for tax cuts for the rich, endangering millions of lives. When the artist Sharon Louden asked on Twitter, “Can things get worse?,” expressing bewilderment and frustration with the latest Republican assault on the Affordable Care Act, I could only reply “Most certainly.” (Read more from Hyperallergic.)

Getting In and Out

Two weeks after watching Get Out, I stood with my children in front of Open Casket, Dana Schutz’s painting of Emmett Till, the black teenager who, in 1955, was beaten and lynched after being accused of flirting with a white woman. My children did not know what they were looking at and were too young for me to explain. (Read more from Harper’s.)

David Goldblatt on Artistic Freedom, Censorship, and Moving His Archive Out of South Africa

Until recently, the South African photographer David Goldblatt had arranged for his archive to go to the University of Cape Town upon his death. That changed in February 2017, when he announced that he would be moving both the collection and, in time, his entire archive to Yale University. (Read more from ARTnews.)

Contradictions in How We Think about Teaching

Students think ability matters more than effort, and teachers think teaching is a gift that is given more than a skill that can and should be developed. Students want easy answers, and teachers want techniques that work right the first time. Both share the fear of failure. Is this a comparison from which we might learn something? (Read more from Faculty Focus.)

Can We Increase the Impact and Reach of Scholarly Research?

Occasionally, the Learned Publishing editorial team enjoys browsing our archives and reflecting on the changing anxieties, strategies, and values within our community over the years. One hot topic among authors in the last decade is the increasing pressure to reach beyond the traditional confines of journals and faculty tenure cycles. (Read more from the Scholarly Kitchen.)

Do the Prices at Auction Muddy Our Interpretation of Art?

Art and money have always been uncomfortable bedfellows. Works can’t get made in a vacuum and the machinations of the market help to keep them relevant. The trading records of works of art—who bought them, who sold them, for how much and why—arguably contribute to a more rounded art-historical picture. (Read more from Apollo.)

US Arts Nonprofits Generated $166.3 Billion in Spending in 2015

The average American culture vulture spends an additional $31.47 whenever he or she attends an arts event: almost $17 on food, about $4.50 on souvenirs and gifts, over $3 on local transportation. This is the microlevel of $166.3 billion in economic activity that the nonprofit arts sector contributed to the US economy in 2015, according to an Americans for the Arts study. (Read more from Hyperallergic.)

Each week CAA News summarizes eight articles, published around the web, that CAA members may find interesting and useful in their professional and creative lives.

Eighteen Artists Share the Books That Inspire Them

Some artists wear their literary loves on their sleeves. More often than not, though, we have no idea what artists are reading, no idea what books have shaped their life and work. So we asked eighteen of our favorites to help compile an eclectic, artsy summer-reading list. (Read more from Artsy.)

Why Didn’t Great Painters of the Past Reach the Level of Realism Achieved Today?

They did. I’d argue to the death that they exceeded it. Forgive me if I come off as pedantic, but this exact question hits me passionately. The biggest misconception among nonartists and amateurs is that more detail equals more realism in art. (Read more from Quora.)

Should Robot Artists Be Given Copyright Protection?

When a group of museums and researchers in the Netherlands unveiled a portrait entitled The Next Rembrandt, it wasn’t a long-lost painting but a new computer-generated artwork that had analyzed thousands of works by the famous seventeenth-century Dutch artist. The result is a portrait based on the styles and motifs found in Rembrandt’s art but produced by algorithms. (Read more from Phys.org.)

Old Criticisms, New Threats

Professors have long been political targets. But a spate of recent threats against scholars—including two that have led to campus closures—is raising fresh concerns about safety and academic freedom. (Read more from Inside Higher Ed.)

Protect Scholars against Attacks from the Right

Threats to scholars are growing. John Eric Williams of Trinity College and Dana Cloud from Syracuse University are among the latest professors to face “physical threats or harassment, or both, for their political speech.” Yet at a time of declining funding for higher education, administrators often become less courageous and more beholden to deep-pocketed donors. (Read more from Inside Higher Ed.)

City of Atlanta Settles Lawsuit with Street Artists

The city of Atlanta has agreed not to enforce an ordinance that requires street artists to obtain a series of approvals to retain murals that already exist or to paint new ones. The decision resolves a lawsuit filed by a group of local artists and property owners, and the settlement was part of a consent order signed last week by US District Judge Amy Totenberg. (Read more from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.)

What Did You See in That Painting?

In a small-scale study, a research team led by Francesco Walker of Vrije University has presented evidence that children and adults look at works of art quite differently, with kids focusing first on visually stimulating elements. Adults, in contrast, try to make sense of the thing from the get-go. (Read more from Pacific Standard.)

The World’s Art Is under Attack—by Microbes

We’re used to seeing famous works of art and historical artifacts marred by the elements. They can be eroded by wind and water, faded by sunlight, or nibbled by insects. But cultural relics can also be damaged by hordes of even tinier invaders: bacteria, fungi, and algae. (Read more from Popular Science.)

Each week CAA News summarizes eight articles, published around the web, that CAA members may find interesting and useful in their professional and creative lives.

Artist Sam Durant Was Pressured into Taking Down His Scaffold. Why Doesn’t He Feel Censored?

Sam Durant’s sculpture Scaffold had been exhibited in Europe three times, but upon landing in Minneapolis for the reopening of the Walker Art Center’s Sculpture Garden, it sparked a media firestorm. Native American activists said it trivialized one of the ghastliest episodes in Dakota indigenous history. (Read more from the Los Angeles Times.)

As a coalition of national and international organizations devoted to promoting creative freedom, we strongly oppose the Walker Art Center’s decision to dismantle and destroy a controversial public sculpture. Scaffold, a 2012 work by Sam Durant, was intended to comment on capital punishment and its disproportionate effect on people of color. (Read more from the National Coalition against Censorship.)

Classicist Receives Death Threats from Alt-Right over Art-Historical Essay

Sarah E. Bond, a historian of Rome and an assistant professor in the Classics Department at the University of Iowa, has received death threats and is being targeted by the alt-right for publishing an article on polychromy in the ancient world. “They viewed the piece as ‘liberal professor says that all white statues are racist,’” Bond said. “And that is clearly not what the piece is about.” (Read more from Artforum.)

Threats for What She Didn’t Say

Scholars vary in how and to what extent they engage with the public. Sarah Bond from the University of Iowa works at the high end of the engagement spectrum, via a blog, social media, and a column in Forbes. She’s described her efforts as a way of making antiquities accessible to all, but recent threats she’s received demonstrate the potential perils of that outreach. (Read more from Inside Higher Ed.)

As the 1 Percent Washes Their Money through Arts Funding, Artists Respond

At the 2017 Whitney Biennial, visitors were greeted by a not usually seen in museums: “The two greatest stores of wealth internationally today [are] contemporary art [… and] apartments in Manhattan.” The words, from Larry Fink, a member of President Trump’s Strategic and Policy Forum and the CEO of BlackRock, were written over a craggy graph carved into the wall that tracked the rising value of the debt levels owned by the firm. (Read more from Salon.)

How Artists, Scientists, and Entrepreneurs Get Their Creative Juices Flowing

It takes imagination to be creative, and it takes creativity to innovate. Pentagram’s legendary graphic designer Paula Scher gets her best ideas when she is in boring situations: “I realize that when I’m sitting in a taxicab in traffic, or on my way to the airport, or waiting to get on a plane, or trapped in some other boring situation, that’s when I get the best ideas, because I’ve got nothing else interfering with it….” (Read more from Inc.)

The Ten Essays That Changed Art Criticism Forever

There has never been a time when art critics held more power than during the second half of the twentieth century. As part of the larger midcentury “culture wars,” art critics began to take on greater influence than before. For a time, two writers in particular—who began as friends and remained in the same social circles for much of their lives—set the stakes of the debates surrounding the maturation of American art that would continue for decades. (Read more from Artspace Magazine.)

How A $165 Million Painting Is Funding Criminal Justice Reform

Agnes Gund recently sold a $165 million painting to benefit social justice and is challenging others in the art world to follow suit. Proceeds from the sale of Roy Lichtenstein’s 1962 Masterpiece, which once hung over her mantel, will go toward the new Art for Justice Fund, an initiative designed to support criminal justice reform at state and local levels throughout the country, primarily through the sale of art. (Read more from the Huffington Post.)

Andrea Fraser Tracks Down Museum Trustees’ Political Donations

The artist Andrea Fraser is mapping the connections between major American museums and the political elite to expose institutions’ ties to the White House. Using publicly available information, she is documenting all political donations made in 2016 by museum patrons and trustees, many of whom contributed to Donald Trump’s election campaign. (Read more from the Art Newspaper.)

Anti-Intellectualism and the “Dumbing Down” of America

There is a growing and disturbing trend of anti-intellectual elitism in American culture. It’s the dismissal of science, the arts, and humanities and their replacement by entertainment, self-righteousness, ignorance, and deliberate gullibility. (Read more from Signs of the Times.)

If Google Teaches an AI to Draw, Will That Help It Think?

The point of SketchRNN is not only to learn how to draw pictures, but to “generalize abstract concepts in a manner similar to humans.” They don’t want to create a machine that can sketch pigs. They want to create a machine that can recognize and output “pigness.” (Read more from the Atlantic.)

The Unseen Labor of Mentoring

It’s extremely flattering that students recommend me to peers who need extra support. However, it can also be frustrating to continuously manage unscheduled drop-ins when I’m trying to grade papers, prep for class, respond to emails, write letters of recommendations, and prepare for meetings. (Read more from Vitae.)

Law and Order

Plagiarism, cheating, tampering, and submitting false records all threaten the integrity of your class and diminish other students’ honest work and effort. Given that misconduct is both disturbingly pervasive and potentially ruinous, how should teaching assistants proceed if they are concerned a student may be running afoul of the rules? (Read more from GradHacker.)

Drinking and Conferencing

At the International Congress on Medieval Studies, as at most academic gatherings, socializing typically unfolds in the presence of alcohol: at the daily wine hour, at large dinners with plentiful cocktails, at champagne celebrations of prizes awarded or careers coming to a close, at casual meetings with friends anytime between sessions when we can gather for a drink. (Read more from the Chronicle of Higher Education.)

How Are Funders Boosting Engagement across Diverse Communities?

We occasionally stumble across a news item that compels us to step back and take stock of the larger arts philanthropy landscape. Such is the case with news from New York City, where an impressive cadre of funders joined forces earlier this spring to engage diverse audiences. (Read more from Inside Philanthropy.)